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Today marks the beginning of another school year, and though I’m excited to get back into the classroom, I feel much less so about leaving A. She has great daycare, but my schedule this year is a little tighter than last and lands us at home around 4:30 every day, instead of 3:30. A celebrated last night by waking up about five times — thank God Jason is the one who does the back and forth to the crib, or I’d be an even more tired Mama. Along with the return to school comes the return to pumping and scalding my milk because of the extra lipase that makes it really disgusting for poor A if it’s frozen (tastes just like soapy water). I’m hoping to post about that soon, but it’s such a process that the thought of taking photos of it has been overwhelming in the past.

In terms of exercise, I maintained last week, dropping about a half pound, despite not tracking food via WW and just enjoying my last week of freedom with an evening beer after the little one went to bed most nights. I did complete T25 Beta, but ended the week with so much hip pain and lower back achiness that I’m taking a week off to focus on yoga and core building. I’m not sure my post partum body was ready for Beta yet (even though it seemed really fun!), and I’m considering another round of T25 Alpha before I move on. A lot of reading I’ve done suggests a week off between Alpha and Beta to protect knees and hips from the jumping, but I’m still weighing my options once I get through seven days of twice daily 20 minute yoga work.

Goals for the Week:

Survive the 4 a.m. Alarm Clock – One Day Down, Four to Go!

Live healthily by packing my own lunches, drinking my new Klean Kanteen of water (40 ozs) at work every day, and getting in those 40 minutes of yoga.

Limit caffeine – one cup of coffee a day at school – that teacher’s room pot is sometimes such a siren song…

Make dinner every night – no takeout! We did takeout pizza last week, and I felt so gross afterwards… then we did pizza on the grill at home and it was So. Much. Better – no grease, healthy toppings, happier tummy!

I’m feeling a little low as I write this, having just waved goodbye to my mother and younger brother. We had the best weekend, and even though we got a little off track on the healthy eating (my mom is an awesome cook!), I still managed to lose another pound last week and finish the full T25 Week Four lineup.

Hanging with the family before they headed south.

So here we are… the Monday two weeks before I go back to work. A is down for a great morning nap, I just finished the day’s workout, and I’m starting to try to imagine a world in which she and I get home from work at dinner time and have to shuffle ourselves into a routine of snuggling, nursing, and still getting a meal on the table. Over the next few days, I’m hoping to post about some of our favorite make ahead meals. Living in a rural area, the takeaway options are nearly non-existent or incredibly unhealthy, so we combat that by making and freezing meals ahead of time to try to help balance evenings when I have to work later than normal. So here’s our lineup for this week:

Somehow, another week has blown by! I look back over last week, and how much we accomplished even though Jason had to spend the entire weekend working out at his dad’s house in preparation for its inspection, and I am so thankful we’re still balancing things. Cords have been picked up and put away, more baby proofing has been accomplished, and I finally got to those pesky floors! And, by some grace of luck, I managed to week and mulch our flower beds and stain the decks before we had company last Friday night. But to get down to the purpose of this post… last week’s meal planning went great, and A ate what we ate (or what I had planned for her) every night of the week!

This week, we’re getting ready for a visit from my mom and brother (Amelia’s Uncle Sparky). They’ll be arriving Friday night and staying through the weekend, and since Uncle Sparky lives in LA, this will be his first time meeting little Miss Amelia. I can’t wait!

In terms of how things are going… I fully completed Week 3 of T25, and with the addition of more careful eating practices, I am down 1.5 pounds! I’ve noticed some hip pain this weekend, but I think it’s just my body continuing to adjust. We’ll keep our fingers crossed! Eating healthily is so much easier with all of our own fresh veggies finally coming in!

Fresh Peas from the Garden!

This week’s We Eat/She Eats focuses a lot on what we can get out of our own garden at this time of year: onions, garlic scapes, zucchini, and cucumbers. The tomatoes and corn are coming, albeit very slowly! Amelia is also loving watermelon or watery-melon as I call it when I feed her, so we’re going through about one a week, and it makes such a great, healthy snack for Mama, too!

Though it took me several days to make it (for some reason it fell out of the rotation last week), we had a real We Eat/She Eats success on Sunday night when A ate exactly what we did – organic chicken sausage (with sun dried tomato and basil) sauteed with organic zucchini and red pepper over pasta (hers was all cut into tiny bites), garnished with fresh grated Parmesan cheese. She gobbled it up and finished it with a side of Greek yogurt with pear sauce. She also ate a great lunch on Sunday of turkey (chopped), blueberries (diced) and cheddar cheese with a few Cheerios. It’s really interesting to watch how much more delighted she is with more seasoned and flavorful food. Here’s hoping we’re raising an adventurous little foodie!

In other news, T25 is still going great. The scale still hasn’t moved much, and since balancing nursing with weight loss is such a struggle for me (I’m back at my pre-pregnancy weight, which I’ve maintained since doing Weight Watchers this past spring), I’ve decided to commit to three more months of WW to see if it can get me to my goal weight. I went off when I traveled home to Vermont, knowing that I didn’t want to pay for two weeks during which I’d probably slide off program, but I’m ready to finish slimming down in hopes that a little less weight might ease up the last of my residual back pain. I should note that all of these dinners are pre-tracked in my WW calculator, something that I’ve had really good success with in the past. I tend to eat the same breakfast every day, and knowing what dinner will bring allows me to make better choices at lunch and in the early afternoon, when I tend to be most snacky.

We’re running a little late here because we got invited over to the neighbor’s for some playtime on the porch after our afternoon nap yesterday, but here’s your update:

Goals for the Week:

Continue to eat less sugar. We did okay last week. Then I baked a batch of cookies.

Keep pushing the water. It’s hot and so hard to keep up with nursing A while remaining hydrated.

Snack on fruits and veggies.

T25 is going great so far. I finished week one, getting all of my workouts in and doing the Sunday Stretch workout, as well. I feel great and my back pain finally seems to be receding. I haven’t noticed any major movement on the scale, but I have a lot more energy and a lot of muscle to rebuild.

In the spirit of truthful reporting, we managed to follow our menu exactly last week, except for Wednesday when I had to work and I came home and made French Toast for dinner for myself, mac and cheese for Jason and pasta bits, peaches and yogurt for A. This is the entire reason why we’re doing a freezer meal for when I work on Thursday. Gone are the days of putting A on her play mat in the kitchen and cooking while she watched on her back.

I haven’t talked a lot about this here, but I’ve thrown my back out twice since having A. And I’m not talking little pull, I’m talking trip to the physical therapist with intense therapy and take home exercises. The last time, she suggested I sharply increase my cardio and ab work, and after month of healing and increasing my fitness level, I bought T25 and spent last week doing a week of the modified program. As such, I’m going to call this week my first week, and I’m hoping to chronicle my progress here, along with a series I’m going to call We Eat/She Eats because introducing a tiny person to solids is so much more time consuming than I expected.

Goals for the Week:

Cut out some of the sugar. Jason has an extremely active job. He burns calories like a machine, so he can get away with eating a lot of things that I shouldn’t (and can’t). As such, I do a lot of baking for him. Baking that I sometimes sample with my morning coffee. This week, I’m trying to cut back and focus on natural sugars: fruits & veggies, using a square or two of dark chocolate for dessert.

I’m also hoping to get back to drinking water like I was before we went on vacation (for me that’s somewhere in the range of 100 – 120 ounces a day), which I desperately need to keep hydrated while nursing A in this very warm weather.

Complete Week One of T25 using only the modifications necessary to protect my back. So far, so good – I wrapped up day one at 5:15 a.m.

We Eat/She Eats – Week One

Disclaimer: I’m NOT a doctor or dietician. A is still primarily breastfed, and we’re feeding her along the guidelines of our pediatrician. She has done purees successfully but now wants finger foods, so that’s where we are — tiny bite sized bits that she scoops up with great abandon.

A few notes. We typically eat local, hormone and antibiotic free meat (much of the chicken we raise ourselves). Veggies at this time of year come from the grocery store, but are slowly being supplemented by our garden produce. Beyond that, while Jason & I don’t eat a totally organic diet, we do the best we can to ensure that what Amelia eats is as safe and pesticide free as possible.